Facebook pre-approves other websites to access your personal info

If you care who uses your Facebook data, you should get ready to change your privacy settings. Facebook Connect, which delivers your personal data to other sites that you choose, is about to start delivering it to sites that Facebook has pre-approved.

Which sites are on the pre-approved list to get your data?

We don't know yet, because Facebook hasn't actually released a list. All we can tell from the available information is that you might show up at a third-party website and be surprised that it already has access to information like your name, birthday, or friends list.

Here's the exact language Facebook has used to explain the new policy:

Pre-Approved Third-Party Websites and Applications. In order to provide you with useful social experiences off of Facebook, we occasionally need to provide General Information about you to pre-approved third party websites and applications that use Platform at the time you visit them (if you are still logged in to Facebook). Similarly, when one of your friends visits a pre-approved website or application, it will receive General Information about you so you and your friend can be connected on that website as well (if you also have an account with that website). In these cases we require these websites and applications to go through an approval process, and to enter into separate agreements designed to protect your privacy.

Let Facebook know what you think!

File transfer on its way to Gmail chat

The crew from Mountain View has just announced that both iGoogle and Orkut chat now have built-in file transfer.

Next stop: Gmail chat, where you'll soon be able to send files to chat participants. Start a chat, click actions, send your file.

[Official Google Blog]

Google releases Chrome 5 Beta

 

Google has just released Chrome 5 to the Beta channel.

Not a major release, but all in all, Chrome development seems to be moving very fast.

Google Chrome : Internal Flash plug-in integration

Both Adobe and Google have officially announced that the non-NPAPI plug-in version of Flash is ready for us to test in the latest developer channel build of Chrome.

 

Google will be including Flash Player in Chrome so users will always have the most current release and a safer and more seamless experience.It makes sense for Google to start bundling the internal plug-in for a number of reasons.

“Internal plug-in will automatically update itself using Chrome's built-in mechanism, eliminating the need for out-of-browser Flash updating.”

Google Chrome : Sync your theme & everything else

Google Chrome can already sync your bookmarks, but soon just about everything you tweak which makes your browser synchronized as well.

Why all the syncing?

It's extremely handy if you use Chrome on a number of different computers.

Better bookmark manager coming to Google Chrome

Several updates have been made to the Chromium source code which will bring a better bookmark manager to the browser.

The new 'tabbed bookmark manager' currently looks like what you see in the screenshot. Rather than opening a new application window as Google Chrome does, the new version opens alongside your current set of tabs (like the new tab page). Items can be dragged and dropped and you can create new folders and items via the tools menu. You can also sort and search your bookmarks.

The manager can also be accessed by typing chrome://bookmarks in your Omnibar.

Coming soon to Google Chrome: Use your Extensions in Incognito mode!

Google Chrome's Incognito mode is a handy way to browse without leaving unwanted traces of your activity behind.

It comes with some minor sacrifices, of course -- your theme doesn't display and your extensions don't work. At least your extensions don't work for now.

Soon enough you'll have the ability to specify which extensions you want Google Chrome to allow while you browse Incognito. The change has landed in recent Chromium builds, and I have no doubt that we'll see this make the jump to Chrome's developer and beta channels fairly soon.

I haven't experienced any (additional) instability or crashing due to enabling a few extensions in Incognito mode.

Windows 7 SP1 details outed !!

There's been talk floating around for quite some time about the coming of Windows 7 SP1.

The short version: Windows 7 SP1 will pretty much just be a rollup of updates that have been previously released.

The slightly longer version: there will be other 'minor' updates, including support for remote desktop client (using RemoteFX) and Dynamic Memory support. Both of those are Windows Server technologies, so they're not of much interest to anyone running Windows 7 at home.

If you were waiting for something exciting, you should probably check out Windows Blog.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to watch more blocky videos...

Microsoft announces Windows 7 SP1

But doesn't set release schedule or say when it will ship beta

Microsoft announced service packs for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but declined to set a release date or a schedule for getting a beta in users' hands.

According to a company spokesman, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) will primarily contain "minor updates," including patches and hotfixes that will have been delivered earlier via the Windows Update service, rather than new features. One of the latter: an updated Remote Desktop client designed to work with RemoteFX, the new remote-access platform set to debut in SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2.

Microsoft did not spell out a timetable for the service packs, saying only that it would provide more information as release milestones approach.

Internet Explorer 9!! HTML5 Video, Faster than Chrome, and much more…

Microsoft showed off hardware-accelerated HTML5 at the MIX10 keynote, and it's  impressive. Main points:

• Full-screen, HD-encoded video on netbooks -- The keynote highlighted the dropped frames in Chrome, while IE9 rendered it fine -- made possible by the hardware decoder on the netbook.
• Multiple HTML5 videos on one page? -- Then they scroll the page down... and there are two HTML5 videos playing full-screen, on the same document! Using only half the CPU (while Chrome used 100%). Can't see a reason you'd have two full-screen videos on the same page, but it leads into...
• A richer, more animated Web -- the demo showed off a video carousel. Rather than the four icons at the top of the Download Squad page, you might see a carousel that rotates. Done entirely in HTML5; no Flash or Silverlight required.

The IE9 keynote has finished. Microsoft says they will be releasing a new Developer Preview in every 8 weeks.

Internet Explorer 9, Faster & More Developer Friendly

A lot has happened since IE8: the downfall of IE6 and 7; the emergence of Chrome; and the maturity of Firefox. Internet Explorer has lost a large share of the browser market in the last two years, to both Chrome and Firefox.That's a process they want to reverse.
  

With Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft will attempt to reclaim its long-established lead -- and looking at the details that have just been published, it might just do it:

• Speed -- faster
• Standards -- CSS3 support, higher Acid3 score, 55/100 currently. (Acid4 will be released soon.)
• JavaScript -- new engine, faster, uses multiple cores! Codenamed 'Chakra'
• Interface -- the interface looks significantly different.

Interested in checking out the new Web platform capabilities of Internet Explorer 9?

Download the Internet Explorer Platform Preview right now!!

Silverlight now on 60% of Internet-Connected Devices

Everyone's talking about Flash vs HTML5 but Flash isn't the only browser plug-in vying for your attention. According to Download Squad, Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in is now installed on 60 percent of internet-connected devices.

Is yours one of them?

Microsoft announced Silverlight 4, and with it some seriously juicy features :

Webcam & microphone support  || Multicast streaming || Drag-and-drop || Offline DRM, trusted offline applications || Full Visual Studio integration for Silverlight development

And, most importantly, Silverlight 4 will let you watch full-screen videos on one screen, and use your other screens without minimizing the video

Update: Silverlight 4 Beta RC is now available to download.

Indian Premier League on YouTube

When the first ball of this year’s Indian Premier League cricket season is bowled, fans across the planet will have a front row seat in the world’s biggest online sports stadium.YouTube global community tune in to the IPL’s YouTube Channel (www.youtube.com/ipl) for streaming and on-demand access to witness the start of what promises to be one of the most widely-distributed sporting events in history. Fans can watch matches, highlight videos, player interviews and much more all on the IPL’s YouTube Channel

On the IPL Channel, you’ll see three tabs:

• Today’s Matches
• Recent Matches
• Highlights

You can come to YouTube and keep up with the action any time, anywhere, and connect with fans across the globe. Watch as the match happens, or if you missed a match, tune in later to see what happened. The entire season will be streamed around the world on YouTube.

New in Labs: Refresh POP accounts

Turn on "Refresh POP accounts" from the Labs tab under Settings, and the refresh link at the top of your inbox will not only update your inbox with your new Gmail messages, it will also fetch messages from any other accounts which you have set up.

Try it out, and let us know if you have any feedback.

Gmail : Fast new windows

Now, popping out a window is much, much faster. No more "Loading..." progress bar.

There are a number of places you can pop up new windows in Gmail.

• In chat, there's the little upward arrow in the title bar

• When writing a message, hold the "Shift" key while you click on the Compose Mail, Reply, Reply All or Forward links and you'll get a new window for your new message
• If you're reading an email and want to save it for later, you can click the "New window" link in the upper-right hand corner of the conversation view

Keep in mind that the popped out window does not outlive the closing of the original Gmail window, although Gmail Team is  working on a way to make that better. Unfortunately, They aren’t able to make this work in Internet Explorer, so to see the speed-up, you'll need to be using Mozilla Firefox, Apple's Safari, or Google Chrome.

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